They Ate the Waitress Read online

  “Are you drunk?” Nick asked.

  “Maybe just a little,” Gordon laughed.

  “How the hell are you drunk?”

  “Their ice tea… It’s imported from Long Island.”

  “Oh, holy hell.” He grabbed Gordon’s jacket, pulling him close. “Listen up, you fat idiot: Reid Mason paid you for information about Hand to Mouth. Reid’s not the type of guy to get his hands dirty, so the killer must have been someone else. Who did you give this information to?”

  “Think you mean, ‘To whom did you give this information’,” Gordon slurred.

  “Just tell me!” Nick slammed his fist on the table, drawing angry looks from the nearby tables. “What the hell is your problem?” he asked the room. “Haven’t you ever seen an undercover interrogation before?”

  “Donald Canard,” muttered Gordon, right before he fell off his chair. “Should go visit Lawn Island, an’ meet the guy who makes this delislush bedvergage…”

  “Well, he’s gone. Nothing more I can do here. I should go home and conduct some serious research.”

  A young woman in a dangerously short, black dress breezed up to his table. She had chin-length, blonde hair and a tiny, gold crucifix around her neck. Like a cigarette girl in the Old Days, she had a large, multi-compartment tray hanging from her shoulders on a leather strap. However, most tobacco companies had gone out of business six days after the end of the “war on drugs”. Her tray was filled with brightly-colored vials, test tubes, and syringes.

  Her smile was deadly. “Hey there, cutie,” she said sweetly.

  “And what’s your name?”

  “I am Faith.”

  “Of course you are.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Our top story today, a local man has set a new record for the world’s largest bonsai tree…”

  When Nick opened his eyes, he had no idea where he was. The last thing he remembered was flirting with a needle girl, but this didn’t look like her bedroom. Besides, he wasn’t feeling the usual post-coitus cocktail of relaxation and guilt. The only thing he felt was pain. His entire body ached, from his head to his flexor digitorum brevis muscles. He was in bed in a sterile, white room, a morning news program playing on the ceiling above him.

  “The hospital,” he realized. The smell was unmistakable. The room had a can of air freshener on a timer going off at fifteen minute intervals, but its efforts were futile. All it could do was add the scent of wild flowers to the potent mixture of industrial-strength disinfectant, stale body odor, urine, and death.

  Sophia was sitting in an armchair at the side of the bed, reading. She looked up from her magazine and jolted. “Oh, you’re awake! God, I was so scared! It’s such a relief to see that you’re okay.” She pulled her chair closer to the bed and thumbed a button on the headboard, switching off the ceiling.

  “What happened? Did they put something in the LSD?”

  “Not quite.” Her hands tightened, crushing the magazine. She wanted to strangle him but, given his current condition, she decided to take out her anger on her copy of Lady’s Monthly. “The doctors said you had heroin and cocaine in your system. Marijuana isn’t enough anymore? You have to do speedballs, too?”

  “Wynne, you know I don’t do uppers. I’m perky enough already.”

  “Oh, right,” she said, folding her arms. “How did that stuff get in your blood if you didn’t put it there?”

  “I don’t remember a lot of what happened last night, but I have some ideas. It was an overdose, but it wasn’t an accident. Someone must have wanted me dead, injected that stuff in me when I was too… distracted… to notice.”

  “So you’re in the middle of a murder investigation, and you decide to get high? Didn’t you think that was dangerous? Or at least counterproductive? God, you must be crazy.”

  “Maybe I am,” he said. “Insanity runs in my family. My mother had obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit problems. She would clean everything neurotically, for three minutes at a time. My dad was even worse. He was a chronic procrastinator with a messiah complex. He would always talk about how he was going to save the world, eventually. And my cousin–”

  “Stop it, Nick!” she snapped. “Every time I try to talk to you about something serious, you tell stupid jokes!” She took a breath and released it slowly. She rose from her chair and sat on the edge of the bed. “I can’t understand why you’re so defensive around me when all I want is to be close to you and to know that you’re safe.”

  “Why do you care? I’m just another customer. It’s not like you give a damn about me.”

  “Right, Nick, I don’t care. That’s why I left work and drove all the way out here to see you. That’s why I’m…” But her voice was lost in tears.

  He sat up in bed and wrapped his arms around her. Softly, he said, “Wynne, it’s going to be alright. Don’t worry. Don’t cry.”

  “But why do any drugs there at all? The doctor said the bar they found you in wasn’t even safety rated.”

  “Sometimes I have to get away from my life. Just take a break from everything. Using drugs is like hitchhiking with a sign that says ‘anywhere but here.’ I enjoy catching bad guys. I enjoy knowing that I’ll have money coming in from my past arrests, even if I can’t work anymore. I enjoy breaking into a suspect’s house and looking through their stuff. But most of my life is awful.” He was suddenly aware of how tightly he was holding her. He forced his arms to relax. “Sure, occasionally I get to beat up a rapist and leave him naked in the baboon cage at the zoo, but still… It’s not fun. Half the time, I don’t even trust the people that hire me.”

  “You can always trust me. But I have to know you’re going to take better care of yourself. You need to be more careful! I work so hard at getting close to someone. If you’re not going to be around for a while, what’s the point?”

  He wanted to say something more, but his mouth wouldn’t open. “If you show someone your scars,” he thought, “there is always a risk that they might be disgusted and look away. Even worse, they might pretend that their skin is perfect.” Gently, slowly, he pulled away from her. “I wonder what’s on TV.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next morning, a strange noise jolted Nick from his dreams. It sounded as if someone were vacuuming, but there was no one in the room. “Must be in the hall,” he thought. “Probably have a cleaning robot set on a timer. I should go out there and tell them to shut the damn thing off… or at least send in a robot that makes coffee.” He felt strangely lightheaded. Groggily, he climbed out of his bed and slipped on his thin, blue hospital gown, closing it tightly against the cold. The door refused to open; the knob wouldn’t even turn. “Why the hell is this door locked?” He banged on the door and shouted. “Is this the psych ward? I’m not crazy! I just have intimacy issues!”

  Nothing.

  He crossed the room and pounded the nurse call button hanging by his bed. No response. The strange sound grew louder, the walls rumbling like distant thunder. He scoured the room, searching for the source of the noise. There was a strong draft coming from the vents near the bed. Oddly, both the return vent and supply vent were sucking in air.

  He decided to try the window. Pulling back the curtains, he discovered that it had been sealed shut. A hard, white substance coated the edges of the frame, some sort of industrial adhesive. “The door’s probably glued shut with the same stuff. An air-tight seal. Whoever did this wants me to suffocate! Well, I’d better get out of here before the lack of oxygen damages my… skull meat.”

  He hurled the chair at the window. It bounced off harmlessly, clattering to the floor. Shatterproof security glass. Probably installed to keep uninsured patients from climbing out the window to escape their bills, the old “recuperate and run.”

  He threw open the closet doors and grabbed his coat. Hospital security had taken his laser stunner, as not even manhunters were allowed to bring weapons into a hospital. (Crossbows were okay, as long as you promised not to take
them to the pediatrics ward.) He did, however, have his trusty pocket knife. He attacked the seal around the window, chipping at the industrial adhesive. It was like trying to dig through cement with a spoon.

  His head throbbed. “Well, I’m screwed. I should hide in the closet, so when someone opens the door, my corpse will fall out dramatically.”

  He noticed a yellow tube on the floor. “Looks like the killer left behind his sealant gun. There’s one last thing I can try…” He climbed onto the bed and sprayed the vent with adhesive. A few quick blasts sealed it shut. He stepped off the bed and sat on the floor. “I’m still trapped in here, but I won’t suffocate. Not yet, anyway. I must have a good ten minutes of air left.” Safe for the moment, he decided it would be a good time to lose consciousness.

  ◊

  He awoke to discover the hospital’s elderly custodian jabbing him in the ribs with a broom handle. Next to the man was a janitorial robot, a humming, buzzing thing resembling a chrome-plated fire hydrant. The robot nudged Nick in the shoulder, trying to get him to move so it could polish the floor. “What the hell do you think you’re doing with that sealant gun?” the custodian demanded. “I’m trying to clean the hospital, and you idiots are gluing your damn doors shut! I had to cut through the door with a saw! What the hell is wrong with you, boy?”

  “Sorry,” Nick said slowly, his head pounding. “Don’t know what I was thinking. Won’t happen again.” Still feeling very ill, he decided that, if the attempts on his life were to continue, he would much rather be murdered in the comfort of his own home. He grabbed his suitcase and left the custodian to his duties. Stepping into the hall, he saw that an industrial vacuum had been attached to the ventilation system with duct tape. It seemed the janitor had switched it off just in time.

  He made a transmission to Sophia and asked her to drive him home. “The doctor said I’m fine,” he lied. “He that said near-fatal drug overdoses aren’t that serious, what with modern medicine and all. Just need some vitamin C, a little Echinacea, a couple doses of methadone… ”

  Waiting outside, he wondered just how big his hospital bill was going to be. “Why did The White Horse have to call an ambulance? Couldn’t they just have left me on the floor?” He sighed glumly. He could already feel his money pouch getting lighter. “Well, things could be worse. Death may be the cheapest of my healthcare options, but it does come with some unpleasant side-effects.”

  ◊

  He sat at his kitchen table with a cup of coffee, going over his notes. Sophia was asleep on his couch.

  “I should investigate Donald Canard,” he thought, adding more sugar to his coffee. “I have to find out what Gordon told him. Also, it looks like Clayton is finally out of town. Hopefully, he took that damn dog with him. If I can get around his security system, I’ll finally have a chance to search his place undisturbed. But first, I have to get back on the horse.”

  He waited until nightfall and then, reluctantly, he returned to The White Horse. “It’s hard to look confident walking into a place that almost killed you a few days ago. Maybe this is a bad idea after all. If someone is trying to kill me, perhaps it’s better to give him his space, just until he calms down. Maybe send him a nice fruit basket, those fancy soaps no one’s allowed to touch…” He grabbed a passing waitress by the shoulder. “Where’s Faith?”

  “What’s that, honey?” she asked, wiping her hands on her sauce-stained apron.

  “I need to find Faith.”

  “Have you tried Mormonism?”

  “Faith is one of your needle girls,” he explained impatiently. “She was here last night. Black dress, blond hair, voice like a porn star.”

  “Oh, her. She’s not in t’night. I think it’s her and her boyfriend’s anniversary. They been goin’ out for three years now, but what she see in that boy I’ll never know.”

  “Were you here last night? Did you see her talk to me?”

  “Why?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Something bad happened, and I need help remembering the details.”

  The waitress laughed. “Hon, somethin’ bad happen ‘tween you and her, you better off forgettin’. Just go to the free clinic and get tested.”

  “You said she had a boyfriend,” he said. “What’s his name?”

  “Don. Don somethin’.”

  “Canard?”

  “No, thanks, I just ate.” She adjusted her apron, tightening the strings. “Anyways, I hope you find your gal. I gotta get back to work.”

  “So,” he thought, “Donald Canard had his girlfriend try to kill me. He knows that I’m getting close to something, and he’s starting to panic. – Wait a minute! How the hell do they know what I look like? Do the people at Scunner Consulting know I’m investigating them? Both times I visited their offices I was in a disguise, so they should have no idea who I am. There is only one person connected to Scunner Consulting who knows the real me: Gabrielle Fairbanks. I’ll come back to The White Horse another day, when Faith is working.”

  He felt too tired to drive, so he switched on the autopilot and had the navigation system take him to Gabrielle’s place. The computer decided to take the scenic route, which meant slightly nicer billboards.

  The only building visible between the flashing rows of neon signs was the Christianarchist Church of Vancouver. The Christianarchists had been founded two decades before the government collapsed. In the Old Days, they spent most of their time planning political protests and talking about how they would serve no authority but God and would gladly kill anyone who said differently. Now that the government was gone, no thanks to them, they mostly spent their time standing around saying, “Great, that’s exactly what we wanted. Anybody thinking about forming a new government? No? You sure? Because you’d better not! Alright then. Who wants coffee cake?”

  Finally, he arrived at Gabrielle’s house. The instant he set foot in the yard, a portly man in an ill-fitting security guard’s uniform stepped out from behind a tree. “You there! Stop what you’re – Oh god! It’s you again!” He drew his revolver and, hand shaking, attempted to aim it at Nick’s chest. “You’d better get out of here, mister. You’re not allowed on the premises.”

  “Relax, guy,” Nick said, showing his hands empty. The guard cocked his gun. Nick lunged forward, grabbed his wrist, and pried the revolver from his hand. He opened the cylinder and dumped the bullets into his palm. Tossing the gun in the grass, he slipped the bullets in his jacket pocket. “Now that everybody’s calm, I just want to talk to Ms. Fairbanks for a minute.”

  “You can’t. She’s on a world concert tour. She’s headed to Tokyo, then Berlin, Moscow, Boise…”

  “Do you have a transmission frequency where she can be reached?”

  “I’m only allowed to give out that information to friends and family and the gentlemen and ladies she is currently sleeping with. And you’re none of those things.” He gestured at the front porch. “If you want, you can ring the bell and leave a message. Camera’s just above the house numbers.”

  “No thanks. I’ll just have to hope that her tour keeps her too busy to try to kill me again…” He walked back to his car, dejected. “Can’t investigate her while her house is being guarded. If I knock out the security guard again, he’ll probably sue me. Have to move on to another suspect… Next in line, Clayton West.”

  He made a quick stop at a hardware store to pick up some insulated rubber gloves before continuing to Clayton’s place. He didn’t want to climb down the chimney again, as the soot had completely ruined his jacket. He had also ruined his underwear, but that happened when saw the German shepherd. There was also the matter of Clayton’s alarm system.

  Snapping on the rubber gloves, he pulled the hydraulic jack from his trunk and carried it to Clayton’s front porch. He bent a paperclip into a “U” shape and jammed it into the electrical outlet by the door, producing a dull popping sound and the smell of smoke. “The electrical short should mean the alarm is off. If not, I’ll have to have another talk with sec
urity. I don’t have enough money left in my bribery budget. They’ll either take my car or shoot me. Quite possibly both.”

  Shoving the hydraulic jack into place, he pushed the door out of its frame. He waited a few moments for the sound of sirens but, hearing nothing, continued inside.

  Clayton had left his television on. An excited announcer was introducing a new cartoon series: “Captain Steam, The Coal-Powered Superhero! As fast as a nineteenth century locomotive, Captain Steam travels the country bringing criminals the toxic smoke of justice!”

  The photos in the living room were gone, the walls stripped bare. “Perhaps Clayton discovered that I’d been here and he decided to hide the evidence. Or maybe he found someone else to stalk, and he’s slowly replacing them with photos of his new lady. …Lucky her.”

  He headed for the bedroom. No dog. He decided to dig through the enormous, walk-in closet. He found a large, cardboard box marked “Renée’s shit – bonfire.” Makeup, tampons, a box of Flavifiers, forty-three different kinds of shampoo, and a threadbare, gray sweater. “She was wearing that sweater in a bunch of the photos. Since Clayton still has it, he must have been dating her when the photos were taken!” Searching the rest of the closet, he found some cufflinks and a leather jacket. He decided to take them with him, in case they turned out to be evidence. Or expensive.

  ◊

  Sophia was up and getting ready for work, singing in the shower. She was a beautiful woman, but her signing sounded like a cat. Being sawed in half.

  Nick poured himself a cup of coffee and reviewed his notes. “It looks like Clayton’s in the clear. What next? If I can’t get to Faith at work, maybe I can catch her at her boyfriend Donald’s place.” He dug through his closet for his disguise trunk. He selected a black, curly wig, a fake mustache, and a pair of aviator sunglasses. “While I’m there, I should see what I can dig up on Donald.”